Twice is a charm
by Jumaolster
Summary: sorry now really COMPLETE! HOPE YOU LIKED IT! REVIEWS ARE A GLASS OF CHILLED CHARDONNAY!
1. Snoring like a train

Eric woke up with a start. What noise was that? He sat up in bed, and looked around the hotel room. Maybe he'd been dreaming, because now everything seemed quiet. Natalia, Calleigh and himself were out of Miami to follow up on some leads in a case, and had been forced to stay the night.

Natalia and Calleigh were sharing a twin bedded room, while he was lucky enough to have a queen sized bed all to himself.

He turned the bed side lamp on to check the time, close to 01.00 a.m., and suddenly heard another quiet know on the door.

"Who is it?" He called out as he walked towards the door.

"It's me, please open the door!" He heard Natalia's voice calling out to him, and opened the door immediately.

He grinned widely. Natalia was standing in the hallway dressed in a pair of pj pants, a tank top and some slippers.

Her hair was all mussed up and tangled, and she looked very cute indeed.

She walked in and sat down on his bed.

"Calleigh is snoring. I'm going nuts!" she exclaimed, "she's got a cold and took some medicines before going to bed. Then she fell a sleep like a rock and started snoring like a locomotive! I can't take it anymore! Can I sleep here? I'll take the couch, of course."

Eric started laughing. The thought of Calleigh snoring like a train was highly entertaining.

"Look, the couch is too small. You can stay here, and we'll share my bed, and then early tomorrow I'll wake you and then you get back to your room before Cal wakes up. All friendship sharing, ok?"

Natalia nodded. She was desperate to get some sleep, and the couch did NOT look inviting.

She promptly crawled under the bedsheets and rolled up on her side in the bed, patting the other side of the bed to signal for him to get in.

Eric joined her, pulling the blanket up a bit to cover her ears and turning the lights of. He remembered she got cold at night, and wanted her to be comfortable.

Natalia giggled.

"You remember huh?"

"Of course I do!" He could hear her smiling in the dark.

Suddenly he couldn't resist the urge, and reached out to tickle her neck.

Natalia squealed with delight:

"Hey! Stop it or I might just have to take revenge, you know!

He slung his arms around her and held her in a warm embrace:

"You just try, missy!"

At first she struggled to get loose, but then all of a sudden he felt her going soft in his arms, and she snuggled up to him, hiding her face against his neck.

He held her tightly and they were both silent for a while. Eric spoke first:

"I've missed you. I'm sorry I wasn't a good boy friend the last time around. I wish I'd done some things differently." He was whispering in her ear, and she felt a wave of warmth flow through her heart. She forgave him all the stupid stuff at once, the "landing" comment, and practically dumping her on Ryan.

"I'm so sorry too. About the mole thing, about Nick, about everything. I'm complicated, you know."

He kissed her forehead.

"How about we do it the right way this time?" he rubbed his nose against hers.

"What do you mean?" she was confused.

"I want you to be my girl. I want to take you out on dates, and walks in the park and stuff. And I want to get to know you again, and not have the pressure to perform my best in bed. Just dating."

He could hear her breath.

" I'd love to, you know. We did get it all wrong last time, didn't we?"

"So let's take it slow, and see if we can fix things, ok? When we get back to Miami, I'd like to take you out for dinner and a movie."

Natalia was so happy. Eric had really matured during the past year, and she herself had learned a thing or two.

"It's a date, then!" she smiled contentedly, and snuggled closer.

Eric reached for his cell phone.

"I'll put a wake up call for us for 05.45, that should be enough for you to sneak back to Calleigh's room."

Natalia giggled and relaxed against him.

"Yeah, because if Calleigh finds out, the going slow and secret thing goes out the window, huh?"

Eric hugged her again, and soon they were both fast asleep.


	2. Trying to be discreet

The morning after, Natalia snuck out of Eric's rooms and back in to the room she had shared with Calleigh, and quietly took a shower while waiting for Calleigh to wake up.

Secretly, she was hoping for the case to drag out, and for Calleigh to take another dose of that cold medicin, but no such luck. They wrapped up all the evidence searching that morning, and headed back to the lab.

But at the end of the day, she finally had the chance to talk to Eric alone, in the locker room.

"Hey!" she said softly.

He smiled back at her, and checked that no one was around.

"How about I take you out for a quick dinner tonight, if you're not too tired? I know a small lebanse restaurant just around the corner from my place, and no one from the lab ever goes there. "

Natalia's stomch growled loudly at the thought of delicious food, and nodded:

"OK. We'll go in separate cars, ok? And before going, I'll take a shower here, and change. So no one suspects anything." She'd hated being the talk of the town, and it had happened not just once, but four times in the past year. People really should gossip less.

Eric nodded:

"See you outside my place in an hour?"

Natalia smiled agreement and headed off for the showers.

After carefully taking a longer route than necessary, Natalia arrived at Eric's apartment just in time, and since it was still early, they decided to take a walk to the restaurant in the warm summer evening.

Their evening was very pleasant, two friends talking about themselves and life, and work. Natalia had seldom felt this comfortable in another man's company, with Nick, it had been a rollercoaster ride, and if she even looked at another man, the consequences for her were tremendous.

For the first time, since Nick's death, she felt relaxed and happy. Really ready for a new relationship, without the ghosts of traumas past haunting her.

And Eric was feeling better than in ages. Somehow, he'd gotten off course after Tim's death, with that awful period of speeddating and loosing his badge. Marisol had been a rock in his life, and her death had really made his world shake. Now he felt like he could actually settle down with someone, and it was a good feeling.

They were so intent on each other, that they didn't notice Frank walking by outside, with a beautiful woman in her forties by his arm. Sheila, his newest flame, had wanted to try out something new and exotic, and Frank had remembered Eric mentioning a Lebanese restaurant not far from his house. Sheila lived in the same neighbourhood as Eric, and she'd been delighted when he'd suggested it.

Frank stopped dead in his tracks. He was looking through the window from the outside, seeing Eric and Natalia talking intently with each other at a dinner table for two with candles and all the romantic stuff woman go crazy for.

What the…? Frank thought. They looked very comfortable with each other, like a couple, two people who laugh at the same things and don't need to worry about not talking for a long time in each others company.

"Hey Sheila? I don't think this place tonight is a good idea honey. I'll take you to the Russian Tea House tonight, and we'll eat here some other time, ok?"

He was already dragging her away. He thought it might be a good idea to leave the lovebirds to themselves, since they obviously didn't want anyone to know. And also, he wasn't ready to introduce Sheila to anyone yet.

Sheila gave him a weird look, but then agreed. Frank looked like the Cheshire cat, and she was set to get the story out of him.

Frank was grinning widely to himself. Mr Delko and Ms Natalia, huh? He was going to wait for the right moment to disclose what he knew. In the meantime, if he had the chance, he would tease them a bit.

That would be fun.


	3. Eleonora's trial

Two weeks passed by. Eric sometimes felt like he wanted to explode, especially when stupid Frank asked him about his newest blond booby conquest. The guy just did not know when to shut up.

Natalia came looking for him in the lab where he was going through some evidence, preparing for a day in court. He looked very handsome in his dark suit, and dark pink shirt and tie.

"Hey, handsome!" Natalia beamed at him, " why so dressed up?"

"I've got a court date, the case with the little girl, Eleonora, the one I told you about." Eric smiled at her seriously. Eleonora's mother had drowned her in the bathtub, and Eric had processed the scene.

He'd had nightmares for weeks afterwards. Now the mother was claiming insanity, but Eric didn't agree. He thought the mother had wanted the toddler out of the way to have better chances wither her new boyfriend, and the evidence supported his theory.

Natalia grew serious.

"Oh, Eric, I'm so sorry. I hope all goes well today, ok? And tonight I'd like to invite you out, we could go to the travelling luna park close to my place. Nothing fancy, just some good old fun and junk food."

Eric nodded. He'd need something to take his mind off things tonight.

"Hey, do you want me to help you going over the evidence again?" Natalia wanted him to help the prosecutor to nail the woman, and she wanted to spend some time with him too. The past week they'd hardly seen each other, between cases and family matters.

Eric nodded, and together they looked over everything again. They were sitting in the lab, close to each other, and Natalia smelled of peaches and citrus fruits. Eric thought she was irresistible.

"Eric, do you want me to drive you to the court house? I have to go and see the D.A. on another case anyway, and if she's available, we could go together?"

He was relieved. He was always nervous in court, and this case was a difficult one.

Natalia took out her phone, and called the D.A's office, they were situated close to the court house.

After making arrangements, they both got up to get to the designated company car.

After arriving at the court house, they went separate ways, Natalia to the D.A.'s office, and Eric to court, and made a date for later. Whoever finished first would wait for the other at the bar in the Courthouse.

Natalia's appointment went well. She was there to talk about a young first-time offender whom she'd taken a liking to, arranging for the D.A. to get him into a recuperation program. It did help that the D.A. was part of her women's group, but of course no one knew that.

Eric on the other hand, was grilled by the woman's lawyer to no end and was getting increasingly angry and frustrated.

He tried out his new mantra for keeping his cool:

I have a date wit Nat –

I have a date wit Nat -

I have a date wit Nat -

I have a date wit Nat -

I have a date wit Nat -

Visualizing Natalia and the luna park.

To his great relief, it worked.

He maintained his cool during the entire interrogation, and by the prosecutor's approving look, he thought he was doing a good job, too.

Exahusted, he left the courtroom after being dismissed, and went to look for Natalia at the bar.

He was so happy the day was over, and bought them two sodas to celebrate.

They then walked back to the car, and in the darkness of the garage, he just simply couldn't resist anymore.

He dragged her behind a pillar, took her face in his hands, and bent down to kiss her. Wildly at first, a deep passionate kiss, then softly.

Natalia kissed back for all she was worth. She was beginning to think that dating without sex was overrated, but she still wanted to take it slow. Maybe she could have him over for a make out session?

They climbed in to the car, and left the building, not even noticing Alexx standing there, rolling her eyes.

_Those two, at it again, huh_? Or maybe it was just in the heat of the moment. She'd seen nothing at work that indicated they were a couple again, and Alexx decided to do some detective work on her own over the next couple of day.

Sighing, she climbed out of her car, and walked up to the court house, to do her part in Eleonora's trial.


	4. On the scene with Ryan

Natalia was going nuts with Alexx. The woman seemed to be popping out from no where, and Natalia had the unnerving sensation she was being watched. Natalia knew Alexx had a very acute gift of observing and interpreting people and just hope she wasn't on to them. In the meantime, she was trying to play it cool.

Today she was out in the field with Ryan, and since their relationship had greatly improved over the past two months, she was enjoying herself.

Ryan taught her a lot, and actually he'd noticed that Natalia could teach him things as well, and they were quite the team.

Today, she was driving him a bit crazy though. She was sms-ing with someone, and this someone made has entire face lighten up with a huge smile, and her warm brown eyes twinkled with happiness every time she checked her phone a new message.

He briefly wondered who the lucky guy was, but since they were now well into being friends, he wasn't even jealous.

"Hay, Nat?"

She looked up and smiled at him.

"Who's the lucky guy, eh? If he makes you smile like that just over some sms's, he must be special, huh!"

She grew serious.

"Yes, he is. Really. We had a big bump on the road some time ago over, you know, things and stuff, but now we're trying to put things together again. I'm hoping it'll work out, you know?"

Ryan was surprised over her serious answer. Must be an important dude, he thought. Ah well. He and Nat were so much better as friends than as dates, and he'd also swallowed his pride over the date fiasco, understanding that he'd hurt her feelings when he told her about Eric's comment.

That was just guy talk, and he shouldn't have repeated it. That had been a bad start, and then the entire mole thing ensued.

For a long time he'd been to angry to even consider forgiving her, but now that they knew each other well, he knew she was a courageous woman, with a big heart for people who suffered. He'd also understood that she was too complicated for him.

He himself was quite a complicated guy, and maybe he should look for someone that complimented his character traits, not someone who was a lot like him.

Now if he could only make a girl smile like Natalia was smiling at the sms.

Ryan sighed.

"Yeah, I know. My lovelife's a mess." He smiled at her sadly.

"Why don't you ask Anna out? She likes you a lot, and has been trying to get your attention, you know."

"Anna? I dind't know that? Since when?" Ryan was a doofus when it came to girls, Natalia thought. Anna'd been trying to catch his eye for months, and was about to give up.

"You'd better hurry, she's getting tired of waiting for you." Natalia teased. She hoped she'd done the right thing by meddling.

She walked over to the other end of the crime scene to process the rest of it, not noticing that she left her cellphone behind.

It chirped quietly.

Ryan was too curious not to look. He saw a smiley symbol and Eric's name. Natalia had one of those phones you can see on the display who's calling even when the phone is closed, and Ryan thought:

Eric? ERIC? Was Natalia's new beau? Holy cow.

Ryan had to sit down for a couple of minutes. Actually that made Eric Nat's old new beau.

Those two were tremendous. Dating and keeping it a secret, huh? Well, he wasn't going to snitch on them. Especially since Natalia had given him the heads up about Anna, he'd never had figured it out by himself.

He would ask her out tomorrow for coffe, after the staff meeting.

Ryan grinned to himself.

He wondered who else knew. Maybe no one? They'd sure fooled him.


	5. Everybody knows

Ryan was flirting wildly with Anna, the cute lab tech, and Eric felt a small pang of jealousy at wathcing them. Once he'd be the one to flirt around. Then he realised that he actually didn't feel like playing around anymore. And besides, Ryan was much happier lately, since he'd started to be friends with Nat, and now dating Anna.

Eric wished the day was over, so he could go home with Natalia. They had started making love a couple of weeks ago, and he couldn't get enough of her. It had been a good decision to wait.

They'd both healed some issues, and were ready to start a new relationship. Natalia had been the one to initiate the first lovemaking session, and he'd let her take things at her pace. Which was pretty wild. Not that he was complaining.

Now was another matter. He wanted her so badly he was going to explode. In that precise moment, Natalia came steaming into the lab.

"Do you have a minute?" she was out of breath.

"Yeah?"

She grabbed him and pushed him out the door, and they ran to the locker rooms. They both hoped it would be deserted.

Eric checked that no one was in there, and blocked the door with a chair.

To hell with caution.

He started kissing Natalia, who kissed him back.

But when he started un buttoning her blouse, she shook her head:

"No wait, not here. At home, ok? I just needed to kiss you."

Eric groaned.

"Let's ask H for the rest of the day off. I want to spend it in bed with you!"

Natalia nodded.

"I'll call him first, and then you can come after me, ok?" She opened her cell phone and dialled Horatio's number. Today was a slow day anyway, he would say yes.

And he did.

She grabbed her purse and told Eric to join her at her place as soon as possible.

Eric was ready to go wild.

He threw caution to the wind completely, and called H as soon as Natalia was out the door.

Horatio, to his great relief, said yes to him too, and Eric followed Natalia home.

Horatio was sitting in his office. He'd had an inkling for some time now that something was going on, but he needed the confirmation, to be able to accommodate some people with scheduling, and making sure they didn't work any cases on their own together. Thinking back, he realised they must've organised things that way for some time, they hadn't worked a case together since that time they went away with Calleigh. Come to think of it, Calleigh had rearranged the scheduling twice over the past months, when he'd assigned the two together.

HMMMMMMMMMM.

Horatio called Calleigh to see where she was, and after talking to her he headed down to the morgue.

He decided to resolve the problem heads on.

Horatio walked into Alexx'es realm, and saw that the entire team was there, minus Eric and Natalia, of course.

"Well", Horatio said, "Calleigh? I've just given Eric AND Natalia the afternoon off. Is there some romantic development around here I should know about?"

Calleigh giggled softly, and Alexx grinned at him broadly.

Both Frank and Ryan tried to look innocent, not being very successful.

They all looked at each other.

"Does everyone know except me?" Horatio smiled at them all. It was good they were a team again.

"Eric and Natalia just took off like they had some fire under the hood of the car!" Frank grinned.

"I think they wanted to take things slow, avoiding the office gossip, that's all, " Ryan added, secretly hoping everyone would be just as content with him dating Anna as they seemed now.

"I caught them kissing in the courthouses garage ages ago!" Alexx announced, with Calleigh just smiling at him.

She'd know all along. That night she'd woken up, and had noticed Natalia wasn't there anymore. She'd gotten out of bed to see if her friend was sick, but in the bathroom, she'd found no one. She'd heard them, though, through the bathroom wall that wasn't very thick. They'd been laughing, and Calleigh had gotten back into bed.

She'd hoped their second chance would work out.

"Then, ladies and gentlemen, we only have to wait until they are ready to confide in us, don't we?" Horatio smiled at them, and Calleigh was relieved to see that he was getting back to being his old self, after Marisol's death he'd been absent and sad. She cared for him deeply, and wished him happiness. Maybe in another life time……


	6. Big news

It took another month, but one day, Eric and Natalia presented themselves at Horatio's office. They had just had some great news, and were now forced to talk to Horatio.

Eric knocked on the door, and at hearing Horatio's "Enter", he opened the door for Natalia and followed her in.

Horatio smiled at them:

"Sit down, what can I do for you?" Actually he had a pretty good idea, he'd seen that Natalia had been pale and tired. He'd been hoping they would come and talk to them, and trusting his instincts, he'd given them a couple of days.

Eric cleared his throat.

"UM: We're here to tell you that, um, we're, um, engaged to be married!" He was relieved to have the news out in the open.

Horatio was happy for them. They both deserved some happiness. Now if they would only spill the beans about the other piece of news he strongly suspected they would give him, he could start making scheduling adjustments and arrangements.

Horatio smiled at them encouragingly. He wished Calleigh was there with him. They'd gone out to dinner a couple of times in the past 2 weeks, and he was dearly enjoying her company. She always made people feel safe and secure. He'd reserved a table at a little Italian place for them the same evening, and he was wondering if the time was right to ask to come home with him for a cup of coffee after dinner. Just friends for now, though, he did not want to upset Eric by moving on sooner than he should after Marisol'd death. Besides, he still missed her, and wanted to take things slow with Calleigh. Friendship was a great foundation for a relationship, he thought.

Natalia looked up at him, smiling shyly:

"I've actually told Calleigh this already. We have another bit of news. We're getting married because we love each other very much, and because we've grown very close over the past couple of months, but also, because, see, we're pregnant!" She beamed at him.

Horatio got up, to congratulate them. He was truly happy, and felt like he was the baby's uncle.

After giving Natalia a hug and a kiss, he turned to Eric, and shook his hand.

"You'll always be family, you'll always be family to me, " he said quietly. "I'll see to Natalia's scheduling, and if you need anything, just let me know!" Secretly he'd already adjusted the schedule for Natalia for the next month. He would do everything he could to facilitate her pregnancy.

They both nodded.

The last couple of months had sure changed their lives forever. And life was good!


End file.
